On June 14 defence minister Anita Anand tweeted, “Ukraine is fighting for its territorial integrity, sovereignty — and for democracy itself.” During a trip to Ukraine a few days earlier finance minister Chrystia Freeland declared, “in fighting for their lives and their sovereignty, the brave people of Ukraine are also fighting Canada’s fight — the fight for democracy.”
Freeland’s rhetoric about democracy began before Russia’s illegal invasion. In November 2019, the same month she backed ousting Bolivia’s elected president, the then foreign affairs minister declared that Ukraine was at the “forefront of the struggle between democracy and authoritarianism” and that “modern Ukraine is the country where the struggle is ongoing and the future of the rules-based international order and genuine democracy in the world will be determined.”
It’s absurd to suggest that the war in Ukraine or Canada’s role in it is about advancing democracy. While efforts to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russian bulwark began before the demise of the Soviet Union, the war in eastern Ukraine started with the US-backed ouster of an elected president. Despite Canadian election observers endorsing Viktor Yanukovich’s victory in 2010, Ottawa helped overthrow him in 2014. The Harper government immediately sought to destabilize a president opposed to Ukraine joining NATO. During the Maidan protests opposition forces, including the far-right C14, used the Canadian Embassy in Kyiv as a staging ground for more than a week in their successful bid to topple Yanukovich.
The president’s ouster led to a wave of right-wing nationalist violence and political repression. On May 2, 2014, neo-nazi “Right Sector” militants killed over 40 “anti-Maidan”/pro-Yanukovich demonstrators in a fire at the headquarters of the Odessa federation of trade unions. No one has ever been held accountable for the horrific crime. (more...)
Why war in Ukraine isn’t about defending democracy
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